The Savage Bees (1976 TV Movie) User Reviews

The Swarm must be destroyed to the last Bee!

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 7 January 2006]

**SPOILERS** One of the first "Killer Bee" movies to come out in the late 1970's "The Savage Bees" starts out with this Brazilian banana boat, the Cornila Rios, limping into New Orleans Harbor with everyone on deck being either missing or dead.

later in the movie a local Sheriff Donald McKew, Ben Johnson,finds his dog Zeth dead and despite it being Fat Tuesday and the Mardi Gras parade he takes Zeth's body to the City Coroner's Office to find out what killed him. Assistant Coroner Dr. Jeff DuRand, Michael Parks, sees something in Seth's stomach that truly disturbs him and calls his girlfriend and entomologist Jenny Devereaut, Gretchen Corbett, to check it out. It turns out that his as well as the city of New Orleans, worst fears are borne out. Zeth was killed by a swarm of deadly killer African Bees.

With a number the crew of the Corlina Rios bodies recovered from New Orleans Harbor it becomes more and more evident that the banana boat has a colony of African Bees hidden in it's hull.

Trying to keep the story of the invading African Bees under wraps Sheriff McKew has a number of his men fan out in the countryside to find the African Bees hive and at the same time both Jeff and Jenny get in touch with bee expert Dr. Rufus Carter, Paul Hecth. Dr. Rufus warns them not to disperse the deadly bees, with fire and insecticide, because it would only have them invade friendly European or Italian Bees hives and take them over and start dozens, if not hundreds, of African Bee colonies. Thosesbees would attack and kill thousands of people and livestock all around the state.

Dr. Carter gets in touch with the biggest authority on the killer African Bees Brazilian professor & Dr. Jorge Meuller, Horst Bucholtz,and has him come to the city's rescue but it turns out that the Killer Bees were a lot tougher, and more dangerous, then even Dr. Meuller thought that they were.

Even though a bit lacking in production values "The Savage Bees" is a lot better then the far more expensive and star studded Killer Bee deserter movie "The Swarm" that turned out to be a real disaster and bombed out in the movie houses a few years later. Dr.Meuller is killed when trying to catch the Queen African Bee when a couple of drunken Mardi Gras party goers accidental cut open, with a plastic sword, his anti-bee protective suit thus being, together with the two party drunks, stung to death.

Jenny ends up being stuck in her red Volkswagon,the color red attracts the killer bees. Jeff in a last act of desperation has her drive the car with him in a police car pushing her Volkswagon, the last mile, through the now empty streets of New Orleans into the Superdome.

The temperature inside the enclosed sport facility is lowered to 45 degrees immobilizing the killer bees and having them collected and brought into the custody of Dr. Rufus Carter's lab for further study. It's just too bad that one of the killer bees survived capture and escaped to start the entire horror of attacking African Bees all over again in about a dozens or so movies that followed "The Savage Bees".

A very enjoyable killer bee TV movie

[Red-Barracuda · 6/10 · 28 April 2014]

A deadly cross breed of African bee descends upon New Orleans during Mardi Gras.

I watched this one recently and was amazed to discover it was a film I had seen many, many years previously on television; I think it must've been the late 70's it made it to the UK. A couple of scenes evidently stayed in my memory. The first was a point of view shot from the perspective of the bees as they rise high in the air over some trees as they pursue a little fleeing girl. The other scene was the finale where a Volkswagen Beetle drives slowly through town covered in the bees. So, this flick evidently made some impression on my very young mind.

Even before realising I had seen The Savage Bees before I was already onside with it. The reason is that I have a real soft spot for 70's American TV movies. I find them cosy and charming and this one was certainly no different. It seems like many even proclaim that this remains the best killer bee film out there, which is pretty impressive given that there have been some cinematic attempts; films that clearly would have had more money and less censorship restrictions imposed on them. I guess it shows that it all comes down to how well the story is presented on screen and it is well told here. Like many others, this one shows the definite influence of the big blockbuster of the time, Jaws (1975). Many animals attack films followed the Jaws template pretty closely and Savage Bees is no exception, seeing as it has characters discover the bee threat but being disbelieved by the authorities whose main concern is the money-making festival that is Mardi Gras. But it uses its influences well and the resultant film is good, with a finale that is quite memorable, after all I remembered it from over thirty five years ago!

Kill All Bees!

[Vomitron_G · 5/10 · 21 January 2010]

This was my third killer-bee-flick in a row, back when the urge overtook me to watch some of those. So this made-for-TV flick from the 70's ended my Killer Bee Trilogy. At the time of its release, it would've probably deserved a 6/10 rating. But it didn't age well, plus it borrows just a bit too much from the "Jaws"-plot (again!). Still, it's a rather serious film and at no point it becomes really ridiculous. You could say it contains a lot of clichés that every killer bee movie seems to have: The bees always invade a small town first. There's a male/female duo of scientists that discover the phenomenon. The authorities won't believe them. There's always a big festivity planned or going on in the town. The two scientists will eventually kiss each other. And if you're lucky, you'll get to see the bee-threat stopped/destroyed in an original way (which was more or less the case in "The Savage Bees"). So I'll be mild in my final rating. But I have to say: the most fun killer-bee movie I saw, out of these three, was "Swarmed" (2005). The lame "Killer Bees!" (2002) pretty much sucked.

"Your Dog's Stomach Is Full Of Bees!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 17 July 2021]

When Sheriff McKew (Ben Johnson) finds his dog dead, he sets out to prove that it was poisoned. With the help of the coroner (Michael Parks), the hideous truth is learned.

Enter Bee expert, Jeannie Devereaux (Gretchen Corbett), and the tiny culprits are identified.

Oh no!

This is all taking place in New Orleans! During Mardi Gras! Will the big party have to be cancelled? Of course not! Let the good times ro... Bzzzz! Eeeaaghh!

THE SAVAGE BEES was made during the "killer bee" craze / scare. As made-for-TV-movies go, it's not bad. Having Johnson, Parks, and Corbett in it, helps to lift it above the average fare.

BEST SCENE: The farmer in the lake sting-o-thon!

Co-stars James Best as a slow-moving politician...

Great 80s American Killer Bee TV Movie

[meathookcinema · 5/10 · 1 November 2017]

The other half of a double-bill in UK cinemas with the other film being the far better The Incredible Melting Man. This was actually made for television in America.

Killer bees have flown into America and are claiming their first casualties disturbingly close to New Orleans when their Mardi Gras is due to kick off. A bee expert (of course) and a guy who isn't quite a coroner yet (so he isn't taken seriously) are on the case but come up against obstacles in the form of sniffy officials who don't want to see Mardi Gras cancelled- at any cost (hints of Murray Hamilton's character in Jaws here).

We learn that the bees don't like noise and the colours black and red. The first human victim is a coloured girl in a red dress blowing a toy horn. Not her lucky day.

The finale involves Ms Bee Expert being nudged into a sports stadium in her red Beetle which the bees have covered as she was earlier using the horn near them (doh!). The temperature of the Super Dome is then lowered as the bees die when temperatures reach below 35 Degrees Fahrenheit. This sequence is very unexpected and works well with tension being ramped up as the temperatures come down (we see this on huge displays which show the actual countdown).

This is an above average TV movie which received a video release in some territories. There aren't enough action sequences and some of the more talky bits are quite pedestrian. But when it gets going its quite exciting. Because I saw it on TV when I was a small child and loved it then it will always hold a special place in my little black heart.

Look out for the scene in which someone in fancy dress tries to take on the bees with a sword. Yes, a sword!

You'll Need to Bee Buzzed to Watch This

[thesar-2 · 4/10 · 16 August 2020]

Talk about unintentional hilarity; take a shot every time they mention the "Africans."

Eh, it's a slow-paced version of horror I happen to love: When Animals (or Insects) Attack or WAIA. And the best of those honey bunches are the ones where it's real animals and not 50' ants. I wanna be scared because this really could happen.

But this by the numbers WAIA isn't one of the better ones. In fact, I must've fell asleep several times and thank goodness it was free on YouTube.

Basically, it's Mardi Gras and thanks to two ships colliding in the night, killer bees are headed to the street party. How will our "Hey! I know those actors!" heroes stop the hive before it's too late and become the Carnival's buzz kill?

Admittedly, it's not all bad, and I love the practicals - of course, this is YEARS before CGI which 100% would've ruined any frights for me. Looks like they used real bees to attack the actors and bravo to them for taking it so I can be entertained.

Only (BARELY) recommended because, again, free on YouTube.

***

Final thoughts: Well, I should bump the recommendation up a bit for the wacked out finale and how they "solved the pest problem." Plus, it did have creepy end-credits. Always a plus for movies like these.

The Mardis Gras Marrauders.

[hitchcockthelegend · 4/10 · 18 October 2013]

It still seems ridiculous that after all these years of cinema and all its advancements, that we are still waiting for a good killer bee/wasp/hornet movie. As it turns out, The Savage Bees, in spite of its TV budget production, is the best on offer.

Plot in a nutshell sees a strain of African Killer Bees sneak over to the deep south of America via freighter. Once child and pet meet with nasty ends courtesy of the buzzing menace, the authorities come to realise what is going on and must do something before The Mardis Gras celebrations becomes a lambs to the slaughter type scenario.

Cast are strong enough for the material, with "name" actors such as Ben Johnson and Horst Buchholz lending their support to the production. The science isn't half bad, the threads involving colour rage and water are interesting, and even though the Bee Genocide finale goes out with a whimper, the idea behind it is at least well thought out.

Disposable and forgettable, but enjoyable enough while it's on. It was popular enough to spawn (or should that be swarm?) a sequel, Terror Out of the Sky (1978). 4/10

Definitely Worth Looking For

[Sturgeon54 · 7/10 · 13 June 2005]

This is not just another cheapy television movie from the 1970s, but actually an intelligent, scary horror film worth seeing, something along the lines of "Kingdom of the Spiders" or "Phase IV" - 2 other very good underrated insect attack movies. There is some good location filming of New Orleans and the swamps of Southern Louisiana, and veteran Ben Johnson is solid in the lead role of the local sheriff. Movies like this need to know how to push the right buttons, and this one does, containing one scene with a scientist in a protective suit poking a giant beehive that really impressed me with how skillfully it was set up. This ain't Shakespeare, but it is the finest quality you will find for this genre.

Yet another Bee-movie.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 1 June 2020]

One of the stranger movie trends of the 1970s were the killer bee movies. All this hysteria was spurred on by erroneous reports on the news that these Africanized bees would be invading America and reeking havoc very soon...perhaps in the next year or two. In reality, decades later, only tiny pockets here and there arrived in the States and the bees never became a major health issue. In spite of the reality, Hollywood made a lot of killer bee movies...such as "The Swarm", "The Bees", "The Deadly Bees", "Killer Bees", "Terror Out of the Sky" as well as the soft core porn "Invasion of the Bee Girls"! All of these films have one thing in common (apart from beeing about bees) is that they all were pretty bad films! Is "The Savage Bees" any better? Or, would you bee better off watching something else?

The film begins with the Sheriff (Ben Johnson) finding his dog dead. He insists that the coroner to an autopsy and it's determined the dog was not poisoned but killed by bees! However, when the Sheriff tells officials about this, they couldn't care less. After all, this is happening around New Orleans...and the local officials are more concerned about a happy Mardi Gras instead of the possibility of bee attacks. What's next? See the film...or not.

This is an okay film....not exactly good, but not as bad as many of the other bee films. It has the obligatory idiots stumbling into swarms of bees scenes that you'd expect...and a really DUMB one involving a sword (you'll have to see it to believe it) as well as a DUMB car horn scene immediately after! And, actress Gretchen Corbett does a particularly dopey (and sexist) job of acting/crying...when she's supposed to be a competent scientist! She's not a bad actress...but she isn't given a lot to do other than cry in some scenes. Overall, pretty much what you'd expect (except for the Super Dome).

Attack the bees with a sword!?

[mellindaowen · 6/10 · 7 May 2021]

The Sheriff's dog got killed. He geht's hin to the Coroner, who finds the News. A certain kind of bees: deadly african bees.

Then the Sheriff gets informed, that there are a few people missing: a young Girl, later a man. He sende out searchers. They get to know the bees ...

fade to orange

[jonathan-577 · 2/10 · 21 February 2007]

I say Ben Johnson and my fellow Canadians say, "Ben Johnson?!" - he was a goddam MOVIE STAR guys, a COWBOY, and by 1976 he was scraping by playing a sheriff in stupid made for TV disaster movies such as this, cashing in on the DEADLY SWARMS OF KILLER BEES that everyone apparently thought were coming to get us at the time. So there's these bees, and they kill some people by flying in their mouth and going after them underwater. Eventually these idiots find the swarm and die and this woman is trapped in her car by the entire swarm. The cops are like, what do we do? Uh, bees die when it's cold. So where could we make it cold? I know - the stadium in New Orleans! So they drive this car and its attendant swarm of killer bees on and on through the streets of New Orleans, with a bullhorn saying "GET OFF THE STREETS OR YOU WILL BE STUNG TO DEATH." And the future home of tens of thousands of flood victims with its broken toilets so becomes the narcotic doom of this particular buncha bees. I don't know which is the greater indignity on this great city...well I do, but this one sucks too. Most appropriately viewed on an extremely faded-to-orange 16mm print, although Betamax is a good alternative!

forget "the swarm"

[DavidAndBeecher · 10/10 · 8 June 2002]

This is a tense thriller that shows, in no uncertain terms how real and deadly the Killer Bee threat really is. This film shows, with scientific plausibility, the City of New Orleans coming under the increasing threat of a large killer swarm approaching town on the eve of Mardi Gras. Unlike Irwin Allen's The Swarm, whose main objective was to show one celebrity guest star after another being stung to death, this film is more like a cross between a tense sci fi thriller and a Hitchcock film. Obviously a TV film cannot posses the cinematic genius of a Hitchcock film, yet this little gem comes close. The team of scientists, (aided by the local sherriff) that are trying to thwart the disaster deal with a slow subtle(at first), steadily climbing stream of attacks. The threat grows as the attacks continue, and for awhile it looks like the bees will win out. The death scenes are the most realistic ever shown in a killer bee film, one senses what it might actually be like to meet this horrible fate. Also a first, this film gives the actual history of how the bees came to invade South & Central America, and deals with the scientific realities of how to stop this menace. Now that there have been killer bee deaths in the United States, this film rings even more true than when it first was telecast in 1976.

Good solid 20th century TV movie

[demodokos · 7/10 · 22 March 2024]

Okay so the VHS transfer was kind of lousy but where else was I going to get one? Michael Parks and Gretchen Corbett do an excellent job and this is a lot better than the average sci-fi movie produced today. Okay, the special effects aren't good, It's 640 by 480, and probably the science isn't any good but who cares. It's well done. It's well acted, and I wish there wasn't such an emphasis today on gory violence and effects, which aren't the same as plot, characterization, and good acting! So if you're from the 20th century like me and have gotten here by the old fashioned method of time travel that is living through the in between time and surviving Y2K, and 2019-2020, this film just might be for you!

Below Average Made for Television Horror Movie

[edeighton · 2/10 · 4 October 2019]

**SPOILERS** Growing up in the 1970's I remember that many local new broadcasts would routinely report on the encroaching threat of Africanized honey bees (aka "Killer Bees"). All of this over-reporting led to the production of several killer bee movies. On November 22, 1976 the NBC Movie of the Night was The Savage Bees starring ageing Western Movie Actor, Ben Johnson. The Savage Bees was produced by Don Kirschner, the famous Rock promoter who infamously abused Neil Diamond's song writing abilities to make hit records for the Monkeys. This made for television movie utilizes a script which steals many plot elements from Jaws and is rather silly and illogical. Worse still, this is not a very well shot film. Even given leeway that the print we watched on YouTube may be inferior to the original broadcast, this film is mostly shot in the dark and incorporates very generic backgrounds. Unfortunately, much of this film was shot at the Universal Studios back lots in California and at Iverson Ranch in Los Angeles instead of the purported location of the story, New Orleans. I took my family to the Superdome in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana in 2014 and it was gorgeous; this film fails to take full advantage of the spectacle of Mardi Gras. Want to see a good use of New Orleans from the same era, then watch the James Bond film, Live and Let Die. The Director of The Savage Bees, Bruce Geller, seems to go out of his way to avoid filming many sequences during the Mardi Gras parade. In fact, The Savage Bees writer, Guerdon Trueblood, conveniently has his characters make the climatic journey to the Superdome on Ash Wednesday, the one day that he could film the car travelling down boring nearly empty streets. Imagine how much cooler that ending would have been if the bee-covered Volkswagen would have had to navigate its way around the revelry and parade of Mardi Gras. Imagine the chaos and spectacle of the parade being crashed by a car full of killer bees. You don't have to imagine too hard, go watch the film Animal House (filmed just two years later) to see how entertaining a ruined parade can be. Or, if you want to see a huge festival (like Mardi Gras) disrupted, then watch the 2012 film, Spectre and see what Director, Sam Mendes, did with his Mexican Day of the Dead festival sequence. The one thing this movie has going for it is the use of actual bees. Norman E. Gary was the Bee Wrangler used in this movie and he did most of the stunts that required a man to be covered in Bees. He later plied his trade in many other Hollywood movies using bees such as the Candyman horror movies. This movie spawned a sequel two years later, Terror out of the Sky. This made for television movie brought back only the female lead character, Entomologist, Jeannie Devereaux. Curiously, they cast a different actress to play Jeannie Devereaux in the sequel. The male lead, Dr. Jeff DuRand, is played by a young Michael Parks, who later went on to become a regular in several Quentin Tarantino films. James Best plays Deputy Mayor, Pelligrino, but most people my age remember him best as Rosco P. Coltrane from the Dukes of Hazard. This movie has more than a few plot holes but here are some of my favorites: · Why did a costume sword do enough damage to tear a protective suit specially designed by world renowned bee expert, Dr. Horge Mueller? · If a single bee separating from the deadly swarm and joining a different hive of harmless American honeybees would cause an ecological and financial disaster, then how does Dr. Mueller's plan of switching the queen Killer Bee with a harmless honey bee queen make any sense? Wouldn't the Africanized killer bees just corrupt the genes of that American honey bee queen's offspring like they did to the Italian honey bees in Brazil? · How is the audience supposed to suspend their disbelief and accept that the temperature of the enormous Superdome could plausibly be lowered to 45 degrees in a matter of minutes? · Ben Johnson's character, Sheriff Donald McKew, is rather curious. Why does he just assume that his dead dog was intentionally poisoned by the townsfolk? Do the townsfolk hate him? They don't seem to have a negative opinion of him throughout the film. Why is he so respectful of the Voodoo dead chicken? Why does he assume that he is going to be able to convince somebody, on Ash Wednesday when everything is mostly shutdown, to open up the Superdome and allow a Volkswagen to be driven onto the field. He announces to the other characters that he is going to drive ahead and get them to open up the Superdome door and then a few minutes later the Volkswagen drives right up to the Superdome and the door is open. How did he accomplish that?

Bee-Movie

[culwin · 3 September 1999]

From the writer who brought you "Jaws 3-D" comes this very boring "thriller" about killer bees. Writer Guerdon Trueblood seems to have a one-track mind, as all his "thrillers" involve either bugs or airplanes. There must be something Freudian to that. Nevertheless, there are no airplanes here but plenty of bees. Oooga-booga! Scary stuff! Half of this movie involves people talking about bees, the other half is people driving around looking for the bees. Watch as they discuss for 15 minutes how to get bees off a Volkswagen. Then marvel as they drive the whole carload of bees downtown to see a Saints game! The only purpose of this movie is to sit around with some friends and make fun of it MST3K-style.

Oh yeah, and look for James Best aka Rosco P. Coltrane... um... he doesn't do his funny voice though.

'Your trying to think like a Bee?' Forgettable made for telly killer Bee flick.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 27 November 2011]

The Savage Bees is set in Louisiana & starts as a banana boat from Brazil sails into freighter about twenty miles off the coast of New Orleans, the banana boat is completely deserted & her crew are nowhere to be found. Arriving home Sheriff Donald McKew (Ben Johnson) is shocked to see his pet Dog dead, McKew takes the Dog to the nearest hospital & manages to convince assistant medical examiner Dr. Jeff DuRand (Michael parks) to perform an autopsy which he does & discovers that the Dog was killed by Bee stings. A body is found floating in the water & he too was killed by Bee stings, entomologist Jaennie Devereaux (Gretchen Corbett) confirms that the Bees in question are killer African Bees that presumably reached the US by being on the Brazillian banana boat. With Mardi Gras in full swing the city of New Orleans faces a potential disaster & it's up to a few city officials to come up with a plan to stop the Bees & prevent a massacre...

This made for US telly killer Bee flick originally aired at the end of November in 1976 & has been released on home video a few times since, produced & directed by Bruce Geller who is credited as the 'Creator' of the original Mission: Impossible TV series & was later killed in a plane crash in 1978 this killer animal/insect film was probably made after the huge success of Jaws (1975) the previous year & just about everyone in Hollywood jumped on the killer animal bandwagon usually with less than impressive results. Here The Savage Bees is watchable enough I suppose but it's so talky at times that I found myself getting bored with it, the Bee attack scenes are tame & uninspired although the ending is alright if only for it's outright silliness. I mean a single cop car can clear the whole of New Orleans by itself broadcasting from just one loudspeaker? Also if the Bees hate loud noises & the cop actually tells people to turn machinery off & be quiet because the Bees will attack them why is he shouting out warnings at the top of his voice from a loudspeaker no more than a few feet from the swarm of Bees? The majority of The Savage Bees is taken up by scenes of various city officials talking about the killer Bee threat & what to do about it, that's fine in an exposition sort of way but it does get dull after a while. At almost 90 odd minutes long The Savage Bees could have used five or tens minutes edited out to speed things up a bit, overall a pretty forgettable entry in the killer Bee sub-genre.

There are a few attack scenes but nothing special, expert Bee handlers made sure things were done safely on set as real Bees with real stingers were used. To be honest I don't think Bees make the best killer creature for films like this, great big Sharks or Snakes or even Spiders are much better as Bees just sort of buzz around & not much else. Even though the film takes place during the Mardi Gras this angle is totally wasted, the obligatory uncaring politician as seen in jaws who is only interested in money is also present but again goes nowhere.

Filmed in Louisiana & the Superdome in New Orleans where the improbable climax takes place. I can't believe you drop the temperature in a huge football stadium such as the Superdome by over 15 degrees in a matter of minutes, can you? The acting is standard fare, no-one stands out but it'll do. A young Michael Parks stars & he has had a bit of a comeback lately with Quentin Tarantino casting him in several of his films.

The Savage Bees is standard made for telly killer creature feature stuff, it's just about watchable if your absolutely desperate for a killer Bee flick but that's the best I can say for it. Followed by the made for telly sequel Terror Out of the Sky (1978).

Something's Buzzing...

[Coventry · 5/10 · 30 November 2022]

"The Savage Bees" is a somewhat peculiar entry in the long list of nature-running-amok/animals-going-wild horror movies from the 70s. On the one hand, it's a very prototypic tale, with aggressive animals - African killer bees, to be exact - going on a violent murder spree in a small town near New Orleans just at the same time as the annual Mardi Grass celebrations. But, on the other hand, it's a much more intelligent and scientifically accurate film that often opts for realism and tension instead of sensationalism and gratuitous action. The lead characters, played by veteran Ben Johnson and a young Michael Parks, are plausible and even likeable, the sequences with massive swarms of real bees are more than impressive, and the buzzing killers cause for a couple of atypical victims in town. It's harsh and painful to witness young kids or innocent workmen getting attacked and killed by a swarm, but also admirable. In many comparable movies, the wild animals only seem to wipe the bad, arrogant, and corrupt people. How realistic is that, honestly? The downside of the film's approach, however, is that it's slow and occasionally rather boring, and that the grand finale (albeit imaginative) is very UN-spectacular.

Something tells me that our bees were petrified.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 12 August 2021]

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad. Well I was indeed sad at the very beginning of this when a small Louisiana bayou town sheriff Ben Johnson finds his beloved dog dead and believing that he was poisoned demands an autopsy. A little black girl heading to church is chased by bees, a dead man with welts, pulled out of the water. Then the dog is found to have a stomach filled with bees. Before you can proclaim "Danger, Will Robinson!", the voice of Olivia de Havilland will come into your mond warning us that a swarm of killer bees is comin' this way. No, it isn't the sometimes over the top Irwin Allen film "The Swarm", but a TV movie that is not going to bless the bees and the children, especially those celebrating Mardi Gras in nearby New Orleans.

This is two years before that all star horror classic yet two years after the pretty lame Gloria Swanson TV movie "Killer Bees" which was far too direct to contain any humor. Gretchen Corbett plays the scientist brought in, with Michael Parks as an assistant scientist working at the coroner's office. Yes, American bees are said to be man's best friend, but the African bees can bring down an elephant, and killed dozens in Brazil when brought there, evidenced by some alleged stock footage. So forget your flies and ants and spiders. To be an African bee, that is indeed the question. Pretty good TV movie shocker that proclaims that they don't want to just sting, they want to kill. Maybe not the greatest of cheap scifi, but quite above average for a TV movie.

US TV outing for a familiar story

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 21 January 2021]

Sandwiched somewhere between the British production of THE DEADLY BEES and the big budget disaster flick THE SWARM comes THE SAVAGE BEES, a rather typical US television version of a familiar story. The template is very much JAWS here, with disbelieving authorities proving as much of a threat as the buzzing beasties themselves. Western star Ben Johnson plays the sheriff, assisted by Tarantino regular Michael Parks and one of the Magnificent Seven, Horst Buccholz, as a Brazilian bee expert! The film's shot running time means that it doesn't get a chance to outstay its welcome, especially when the last half hour is taken up by a tense set-piece with the bees swarming over a Volkswagen (they hate the colour red apparently), which reminded me a bit of CUJO. The film was directed by Bruce Geller, the man who created the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE TV show, shortly before he died in a light plane crash in 1978. It's dated but fun, and currently available on Youtube.

Somewhat boring...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 19 March 2024]

Of course I had never heard about this 1976 TV movie titled "The Savage Bees" prior to sitting down here in 2024 to watch it. I happened to stumble upon the movie by random luck, and with it being a movie I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a fair chance.

Writer Guerdon Trueblood actually put together a fair enough script and storyline, however the movie sort of loses its momentum halfway down the line and settles into a monotonous hum. And the movie never really recovered from that, so the narrative is not really crammed with overly interesting events throughout the course of the movie. And that made sitting through "The Savage Bees" a little bit boring.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Michael Parks. The acting performances in "The Savage Bees" were actually good, despite the script being a bit bland.

While I did manage to sit through the entire movie, I was only mildly entertained. "The Savage Bees", however, will not be returning to my screen a second time.

My rating of director Bruce Geller's 1976 movie "The Savage Bees" lands on a four out of ten stars. The movie was simply a bit too uneventful.

Childhood fear

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 3 August 2023]

In the U. S., this movie played TV. But in the UK, it was in theaters, where people could be as freaked out as I was when I was four and had to watch bees cover a VW Bug and sting people of all ages, shapes and sizes.

It was the movie that Guerdon Trueblood made after The Candy Snatchers, so obviously he's all about punching the audience in the head, heart and gut. He also wrote Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo and Ants, so once he realized little creepy crawlers freaked people out, he kept at it. He also was the writer for SST Death Flight and Jaws 3D. And oh yeah - the sequel to this movie, Terror Out of the Sky.

Norman Gary is the real hero here. He was an entomologist and acted as the production consultant and bee wrangler/handler for this film. All of the swarming shots were handled by him and he also plays a victim. Hundreds of thousands of bees were used for this movie, but there were few injuries.

Sheriff Donald McKew (Ben Johnson) finds his dog dead just as an abandoned freighter pulls into New Orleans, kind of like Zombi, except with bees instead of zombies. Assistant Medical Director Jeff DuRand (Michael Parks) and entomologist Jeannie Devereaux (Gretchen Corbett) learn that the bees in the dog's stomach are violent ones that could only come from South Africa. This is all happening during Mardi Gras and yes, the parade should be canceled, but the tourists! It's all psychological. You yell spider and everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell killer bee, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July. Or Mardi Gras.

But the scene where Devereaux has to drive that Volkswagen into the Super Dome hoping that it will get cold enough to kill the bees? Still horrifying. Kids covered in bees? The UK poster? It's all bee trauma.

Best of the Killer - Bee movies.

[jnsavage3 · 8/10 · 20 May 2003]

I remember seeing this movie on T.V. as it was starting back in the 70's and being just too lazy to get up and change the channel thinking "not another killer bee movie". I'm glad we didn't have remote controls back then, as this proved to be very good little made-for-TV flick.

First off, the movie does a very good job with the "science" aspect, explaining how the very aggressive African Killer Bees are making their way to the U.S. and are almost unstoppable. Also, the cast does a very good job in building suspense and empathy in the characters they portrayed, with the strongest by Gretchen Corbett as the lead female character, with the weakest character being the sheriff.

In spite of being made in 1976, this movie is surprisingly not all that dated in look and atmosphere. The pacing is good and the effects are fine for this type of movie, although, with all of the computer tricks available now, they could have enhanced some of the final scenes. But, again, the performances are good enough to make up for any short comings in the effects department.

I recently dug this movie up in a box of video tapes I had recorded in the 80's and decided to put it to the real test. I invited my 13 year old son in to watch some of it with me, and after 15 minutes or so he was hooked and wanted to watch the whole movie.

It seems that they never show these good old made-for-TV movies on T.V. any more, so a DVD release would be nice. This one gets 8 out of 10. You will forever associate the Voltz-Wagon Bug with this movie.

Best of the 'killer bee' movies.

[DecaturCentaur · 10/10 · 15 December 2011]

Loved this movie! Watched it on TV back in '76, six days before my 12th b'day and it absolutely terrified me...the only movie that ever made me shake(my sister had to call my mother home from visiting her mother to calm me down)- my reaction could have been caused by me getting a bit to close to a hive a year earlier and being chased more than a quarter of a mile and stung an estimated 75 times...I still have nightmares about it- and it was exactly like in the movies...screaming and swatting wildly while their buzz filled the air. Anyway, I watched the movie again about 15 years later, and, of course, it didn't have the same effect, but this time, I actually got to enjoy the movie. It's a charming '70's movie with a lot of personality. It's well acted, well written...and the action scenes are well done and not to slick(like so many of todays' flicks). It also gives some factual history on how the Africanized bees came to be. I loved the background being New Orleans, with my favorite scene being the couple dressed as pirates who, I think, had had a bit to much to drink, drove their Cougar convertible to a bee infested hotdog stand. They just don't make them like this anymore(and I don't think it would work now..not enough gore and computerized effects). GOOD STUFF..and one of the best of the killer insect movies of the '70s.

Solid period TV horror flick/B movie

[myonlineauctions · 8/10 · 20 September 2021]

Watched this back when it debuted on a little 16" or maybe 18" tv.

Was very effective at its claustrophobic creepy-crawly feel.

Definitely gave you the heebee-jeebees.

The killer bee scare of the 70s was truly a real phenomenon.

Maybe they didn't take over the world, but we didn't know that.

After all, fire ants will never make it out of Fla.(eyes roll).

We talked about the flick in science during school that week, and the accuracy of the swarming bees. Interest was such that that our teacher capatilized on the enthusiasm and we watched a movie reel on bees!

Everyone it seems watched Savage bees that night on television.

When you talk 70s bee movies almost every time someone will blurt out "which one had the girl in the red VW?"(pronounced VEE-dub-ya).

For the day, I assure you it was received as a pretty good movie, especially for TV.

Bzzzzzz!!!

[GOWBTW-5STARreviewer · 9/10 · 27 July 2023]

Movies dealing with killer nature are always good to watch. The place is New Orleans. The activity is Mardi Gras. There is a floating tanker with dangerous cargo. The cargo is KILLER BEES. They escape from the container they were in and wreak havoc.

An entomologist does the research on the Bees, and would discover that they have a strain of a gene that produces violent behavior of the bees.

In the 1950's, scientists cross breed European bees and African bees to create a very aggressive bee known as The Killer Bee. With the bees out, Mardi Gras is a nightmare. They don't kill by stinging their victims, they will fly in the victim's throat, even in the stomach!

It's a thrill for the ages. I did my research.

4 out of 5 stars.